


in aeternum

by we_the_mighty



Category: Vampyr (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Pre-Canon, Sibling Bonding, but really it's only slight, jon and mary are so cute and they deserve the world, like three lines max, there's plenty of both, they're vampires people cmon, welcome to my tedtalk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 06:23:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17699282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/we_the_mighty/pseuds/we_the_mighty
Summary: in aeternum: adverb. to infinity; forever.a short story in two parts.1. children stare into the universe, and2. the universe stares back.





	in aeternum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Terion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terion/gifts).



He considers ignoring her.

It’s selfish of him, he knows, but at that moment he can’t find it within him to care.

“Jonathan!”

The boy sighs, stretching out his too-lanky body over the quilt they had laid down. He lays his book to the side and blinks up at Mary with an utterly bored expression.

“Jonathan, I didn’t ask you out here to come _read_.”

“I wasn’t aware,” he responds dryly, keeping up that constantly annoyed attitude he had developed since the twins turned fifteen only a few months ago.

Mary knows him far too well, and she is having none of it. The book is snatched from the ground in an instant, and in the amount of time it takes for Jonathan to get up to run after her she’s already climbing up the chimney to sit on the edge. She had always been brave, his Mary. Always daring.

Always _annoying._

“Give it back!” Jonathan shouts, making a mad dash to the chimney stack. “Give it _back_ , Mary!”

“All you ever do is read your books, Jonny!” Mary laughs back in a tauntingly sing-song voice, dangling the book out in front of her as she hopped from foot to foot. “You’re going to tire your eyes out one day, and then you’re going to need _glasses_! Thick, ghastly looking things that will make your eyes look like a bugs’!”

“Will _not_! Come on, Mary, give it back!”

“There’s supposed to be a star shower tonight, Jonny! You promised you’d _watch_ it with me, not lie on the ground and _read_ like you always do!”

Jonathan briefly considers pushing Mary’s legs from the chimney stack, but he quickly dispels the thought from his mind. He could _never_ hurt her like that. Still, he looks up at her with a mean sort of frown and breathes out an impatient huff. “I don’t care about some _stupid_ stars.”

“That’s a _lie_ ,” Marry retorts right back at him. She really did know him all too well. “You just like to believe you’re oh so _sophisticated_ with your fancy anatomy books.”

“No I do not!”

“I’ll give you your stupid book back after you watch the star shower with me. _Actually_ watch it. Deal?”

Jonathan turns his gaze to the sky for just a moment before leveling those hazel eyes right back to Mary. “Fine,” he snaps, managing to sound annoyed. Mary only lets out a victorious little cheer and jumps from the chimney stack, leaving the book balancing safely on the corner.

Jonathan wasn’t actually annoyed. In fact, a part of him was relieved. Mary had given him an excuse for a break. It was tiring, he found, trying your hardest to grow up as fast as you could. He was always in a rush, and it was moments like these that he was grateful to have Mary to reign him back.

They lie back down on the blanket and, for a few moments, sit in complete silence. Jonathan could almost pretend they were in the Royal Observatory, looking at the stars with great big telescopes and discovering all sorts of new wonders.

They’re not at the Royal Observatory, of course. They’re on the roof of their house in the West End, and Jonathan is harshly reminded of this fact due to the excited voices that came from the shopping streets only a few meters down.

“Look, Jonny!” Mary whispers, gently nudging his shoulder and pointing up towards the sky above. London was usually far too cloudy to see anything of much interest, but that night was clear and warm. Bright specks of light dotted the night, and every few seconds an even brighter streak would fly overhead.

His sophisticated facade crumbles completely, and once again Jonathan is just a boy.

“Wow,” he whispers, staring awe-struck with his mouth slightly agape. He had never _seen_ a star shower before.

“Do you ever wonder what would happen if one flew close to Earth?” Mary asks, still staring up at the sky with the same wonderful look as Jonathan. He turns his head to the side, eyebrows suddenly furrowed in confusion.

“Why would you say such a thing?” He snaps.

“It could happen at any moment,” she replies calmly. “One of the stars flies right into Earth, and  _poof_. Everything is gone. We’d have to start all over.”

“I don’t want to think about that, Mary.”

“Of course you don’t,” she scoffs, gently kicking at his knee with her foot. She sits up on the quilt, drawing her knees to her chest as her neck cranes back to continue looking at the sky. “All you want to do is read your books.”

Jonathan offers an annoyed huff but otherwise doesn’t say anything. He’s hoping Mary will be quiet so they can enjoy the rest of the star shower in peace.

She doesn't stay quiet, of course, 

“Do you think there’s anything else out there, Jonathan?”

“Of course. Ugly little green men that fly down to Earth in big metal spaceships so that they can come to take you away.”

Mary swats her hand on his side. “I’m serious! Everybody says there’s a great big universe out there that we’ll never even get to see.” She worries at her bottom lip for a moment, never taking her eyes from the stars. They still fall around them, and for a very brief moment, the thought made Jonathan feel trapped.  _So much out there that he would never get to see, so much out there that he would never get to **know**_. “It’s sort of scary, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think it’s all that scary.”

Mary turns her neck to look at him, and now her eyebrows are furrowed as well. “You’re an awful liar, Johnny.”

“I’m not a liar, Mary!” Jonathan insists, words adamant even as the back of his neck turns red and his eyes fall from the sky.

“That’s another lie right there!”

“Well, what do _you_ think is out there?”

Mary only shrugs, another mischevious smile tugging at her lips. “You didn’t tell me, so I’m not going to tell you.”

“I did tell you!”

“Then fine. I think there are millions of other planets just like this one, except the rivers run with clotted cream and the hills are made of butter biscuits -”

Jonathan kicks are her legs, but there’s a slight smile across his face. “Don’t be ridiculous Mary,” he scoffs.

“I’m not being ridiculous!” She laughs, kicking right back at his own legs. “You’re not a liar, and neither am I!”

“No, you’re just a _child_.”

“And so are you, _brother dear_.”

Jonathan doesn’t have a response to that. Mary knows him far too well, after all. “Mother isn’t up with us,” he finally replies, settling on a change of subject. 

“She hasn’t been out here the past few times, Jonathan.”

“I know.”

Mary looks to the window that leads into the house with the same concerned look she had stared at the sky with only a few minutes ago. “Maybe she’ll join us next time.”

“Maybe,” Jonathan agrees, and perhaps Mary is right; he _is_ a liar. “When Father returns I’m sure her spirits will come back to her.”

The star shower above them begins to come to a close with less and less beams of light flashing across the sky, and Mary turns back towards it as if she can sense the end.

“Is that your diagnosis, Doctor Reid?” Mary teases, finally climbing up to her feet. She lets her hand reach out for Jonathan to grab so he can hoist himself up. “Is that what you read about in those fancy books of yours?”

“No,” he replies calmly, not bothering to sweep the dirt off his pants after he uses Mary’s hand to help himself to his feet. She bends down and rolls the quilt up into a neat little bundle, swaddling it beneath her arm. “I read all about consumption and the black death and pox -”

“Enough!” Mary laughs, hitting him over the head with the rolled-up quilt. “I won’t hear any more of it, Jonny! It’s _vile_!”

“It’s not vile!” He argues, swiping at Mary to try and grab the blanket for himself, “It’s _medicine_!”

Mary steps back from the swipe, using her still longer legs to her advantage. “Everyday I believe more and more that those words are merely synonyms, brother dear.”

“Shows how much _you_ know,” he huffs, giving up on trying to snag the blanket and instead making his way over to the chimney stack to reclaim his book.

“There’s loads I don’t know,” Mary agrees, trailing behind him to the chimney stack and then eventually to the window that led back into the house. Clouds had appeared suddenly in the sky as soon as the shower stopped, and Jonathan finds the coincidence peculiar. It was almost as if they were meant to watch the start show. As if the universe _wanted_ to be seen. “I don’t know anything about consumption or the black death or pox, and you don’t know anything about how to paint or sew a dress or keep a garden.”

“I don’t want to do any of those things,” the boy scoffs, glancing one last time at the murky sky as he climbs over the window into the warm light of their house.

“And I don’t wish to know anything about the black death or consumption,” Mary smiles, stepping over the ledge to join her brother in the house, “So maybe we’ve finally come to an understanding.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever understand you, Mary.”

“And that, dear brother,” she yawns, smile turning to a slight smirk as the make their way downstairs and part to go into their bedrooms, “Shows what a _fool_ you really are.”

Jonathan smiles. “Goodnight, Mary.”

“Goodnight, Jonny.” 

And Jonathan settles in bed with his book of medicine, trying his best not to think about the stars and the universe behind them. He’s successful, for the most part. Jonathan has always been rather talented at distracting himself.

He sleeps.

  


*~~~*~~~*

  


He considers ignoring her.

It’s selfish of him, he knows, but at that moment he can’t find it within him to care. Only the threat that had hung over their mother’s head had given him the strength to raise a hand against his sister, his _Mary_ , to strike out against the face that was so similar to his own but no longer the one he knew. Mother is safe, now; the threat extinguished. Mary kneels on the ground, clutching her own grave marker to her chest as if it’s the only thing keeping her upright. Perhaps it is.

Jonathan cannot tell if the look of defeat plastered across her face is because she failed in her quest to kill him or because she has finally realized that was never her quest at all.

“Mary,” he finally sighs, and even though he has won the fight he feels like falling to the ground right beside her. She looks exhausted lying there, and a disconnected little voice in the back of Jonathan’s mind wonders when the last time she managed any sleep was.

_“Hospital to hospital, Jonathan. Cemetery to cemetery. Grave to grave. I’ve lifted every stone in London, searching for an end to this nightmare….and there you were.”_

She had finally found him.

The only response to her name is the violent _snap_ of wood, a harsh thunderclap that echoes throughout the cemetery and bounces off the graves. Jonathan does not flinch. “Well, brother….it’s time to bring this conversation to an end. Forever.”

Jonathan rises to his feet and takes a reluctant step back. His voice quivers. He can’t for the life of him remember the last time it did that. “You know I will not play this game.” The words feel heavy, _final_ , dripping from his lips like the darkened blood that still stains Mary’s porcelain skin.

“Come now, doctor. Like a rabid dog. Or think you’re performing an autopsy -”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

Jonathan knows they aren’t the right words the moment they leave his lips. _Oh yes, Doctor Reid_ , he thinks to himself bitterly, thoughts staining his mind like bile, _it is the sweet,_ **_fragile_ ** _Mary being ridiculous, not the prodigal brother who enacted her torment and now refuses to bring it to an end._

Her response is explosive, a rather abrupt reminder of the _madness_ he had inflicted upon her. “I’ll kill them all!” The words are hissed fiercely, and suddenly the tips of her nails are biting into the soft rain-rotted wood of the marker. Jonathan finally recognizes the anger. It’s not a mindless rage; it’s _exhaustion_. The thought of being neither defeated nor victorious. The thought of having to continue on.

It is at this moment Jonathan realizes just how fiercely his Mary wants to die, and it is at this moment he steps closer and drags her to her feet.

“The kind Doctor Swansea! The sweet little lass with hair of red! I am the **harbinger** , bringing your **punishment** ,” she says. _“I cannot stop until this_ **_ends_ ** _,”_ she doesn’t say. _“Please let it_ **_end._ ** _”_

Jonathan grabs the broken stake from her hands. He means to throw it to the side. He doesn’t, and it hangs heavy in his hand. “Mary….”

“Don’t you see?” The words themselves are a question, but the desperation that has crept into Mary’s tone warps them into a plea. Jonathan doesn’t want to hear that defeated tone in her voice anymore. He wants to take her by the shoulders and _shake_ her, wants to scream at her that he _sees_ , of _course_ he **_sees_ ** , and suddenly he understands why his voice in her head was able to drive her mad. He seems to be realizing many things tonight. That has always been his ultimate goal, after all; to study, to learn, to _understand._ Perhaps this is the wakeup call he needed.

There is such a thing as knowing too much.

He does not shake her. He does not scream. He does none of these things. Instead, he lays his hand against her cheek, and the coolness of her skin makes him want to cry.

“This is not me,” she continues, as if she cannot see the warring conflict within him. Maybe she can and simply does not care. After all that has happened, she deserves to put her own needs first. Jonathan does not blame her. “Flesh that never ages. All nightmare, no dream….bring this to a close. Let me _sleep_.”

Jonathan is expecting the words, but they feel like a punch to the gut nonetheless. They slash at him worse than any blow delivered during their fight, worse than any blow he had received since becoming….whatever he was now. A vampire. A monster.

A murderer.

“Mary,” he whispers again. It feels like all he’s said since this conversation had begun. It feels like all he can say. He doesn’t know what else to say as his arm thrusts forward, burying the sharpened wood into the fabric of her blood-stained funeral dress and deep into that barely beating heart. She hangs on for a few final moments, even as her body slackens and he catches her in his arms so that she’s leaning against him and looking at the sky. He doesn’t know why the stake doesn’t kill her immediately, but then again he doesn’t know why his own bullet didn’t end him, either. Perhaps it was a choice that the both of them were granted; one last final decision that would belong to them and them alone.

The difference between them, Jonathan and Mary, is that Mary chooses differently.

“Jonny,” Mary whispers, and although she doesn’t quite look peaceful there is a far-off look in the pale blue of her eyes, as if she’s staring at more than just the stars. Jonathan recognizes the look, long as it’s been since he last saw it. Mary is suddenly a child again in his arms, and he feels far too young to carry her. He persists, nevertheless, keeping her already dead weight upright with a sort of childlike stubbornness; _As long as she is standing,_ he justifies, _as long as I hold her she is still with me._

“Do you think there’s anything out there, Jonny?”

This time Jonathan answers with the truth, and the words drip like bloodied velvet from his lips. “I do not know, Mary,” he replies softly. “I do not know.”

Mary is far wiser than him. It is a cruel irony, Jonathan knows, to have one twin always search for the truth but only give the other the ability to accept it.

“Finally,” she breathes, and and the both of them know they are her last, “At last….I can forgive you.”

Those final words are delivered with a smile, and the frail light is extinguished from Mary Reid’s eyes.

Jonathan drops her into the grave she never should have crawled out of. Never should have been buried in. Mary, his beautiful, broken, _tormented_ Mary, lay still at long last.

He feels nothing. He feels too much. His heart is heavy, _burning_ , an iron brand lodged in that empty spot nestled between his lungs and ribs. He doesn’t realize he’s crying until the droplets of blood land on Mary's grave. One last meal; one last supper.

It was always the blood.

The night sky was thick with clouds, but Jonathan could feel the stars on him nonetheless. He feels that same, hopeless feeling of being _trapped_ that he did before, all those years ago, except this time he understands. It is not the thought of an endless universe that scares him; it is the thought of it being empty.

Jonathan falls, knees crashing heavily into the ground. The stars watch.

He weeps.


End file.
